Search - Alexander Gibson, Sno :: Music of the 4 Countries

British Miscellany

Geoffrey Brock | London United Kingdom | 10/21/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This CD has four pieces of music with no link except that they reflect the musical idioms of England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. The compositions are of varying quality, but the committed playing of Gibson and the SSO bring out the best in all of them.The best piece has to be McCunn's "Land of the Mountain and the Flood": a rollicking overture with an unforgettable main theme, brilliantly played.Next is Smyth's "The Wreckers" overture. Again, lively and full of memorable tunes. A much negelcted composer, it is nice to see something of hers finallly get on CD.Harty's "Wild Geese" overture is jolly, if not very memorable, and here it is played enthusiastically by the SSO.And finally, German's "Welsh Rhapsody". Well, it's like getting a four-pack of yoghurt - there's always one flavour you don't like. It's a dull piece, with a coup du theatre at the end that fails to come off. Nevertheless, it's well-played and may bring some converts - perhaps some people like prune yoghurt..."

Derivative (of Brahms, Wagner, Strauss, Tchaikovsky)

Discophage | France | 06/24/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I bought this disc out of sheer curiosity, and to benefit from the rebates on postage cost for combined shipment on purchases from the famous auction site. What I have in fact is the disc's first CD-release from 1988 in the EMI Studio collection (not listed on this website, but it is on the European sister companies under ASIN B000027FJZ). I'm fairly familiar with the EMI Studio catalog - a useful mid-price series of EMI from the late 1980s which brought back lots of fine material from the LP days - but I wasn't aware of this one (nor that it had been reissued on Classics for Pleasure). Well, I came, I heard - and I left.



No wonder, as the excellent liner notes aptly put it, that this generation of British composers, who came to maturity at the turn of the 20th Century, was overshadowed by Elgar. It is so influenced by German music, especially Wagner and Strauss, and by Tchaikovsky, as to present (to my ears) little originality, except that of being British. In a way, the generation was overshadowed more by Vaughan Williams, Britten and Tippett than Elgar: they proved that British music was capable of producing music of more personality than the Wagner-Strauss-Tchaikovsky influenced model.



Ethel Smyth's overture to her most famous opera (out of six), "The Wreckers" from 1906, is suitably dramatic, evocative and not without its share of bombast, with many echoes of Wagner and a few whiffs of Brahms. It sounds to me like run-of-the-mill night at the Opera a century ago. Two years before, Puccini had composed Madame Butterfly and the previous year Strauss had completed Salome.



Hamilton Harty is best remembered as a conductor. As a composer, his descriptive tone poem "With the Wild Geese" points to Tchaikovsky and Strauss. Nothing to do with wildlife, by the way: it is about "the Irish soldiers who fought for France at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745". It is hardly original, but has its evocative moments. At 18:28, it is also way too long.



Ever heard of Hamish MacCunn (1868-1916)? If you have, then you are more knowledgeable than I am in obscure British composers. Like Harty, he seems to have been more active as a conductor and died at 48. The liner notes (reprinted from the original 1968 release) claim that he was the conductor of the first British performance of Tristan, but I owe to the Gramophone online archive and the original review of this disc back in 1968 that it was in fact the first performance in English language. He wrote his Concert-Overture "The Land of The Mountain and the Flood" at 19. Maybe because it is the earliest composition in this collection, it harks back to Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer and early Wagner (think of the spinsters' chorus in Flying Dutchman). But it is colorful and lively.



Colorful and lively: I' say the same of Edward German's Welsh Rhapsody, in the form of a four-movement symphony based on Welsh tunes and played without break. For all its derivativeness and despite the negative comments I read not only from other reviewers on this website and its European sister companies, but also from the reviews in Gramophone, it is the piece I found overall the most enjoyable on the disc. Think of Tchaikovsky's ballets and you'll get an idea - and German's is a good imitation (despite its moments of maudlin sentimentality). German (1862-1936) was also seen in his days as an heir to Sullivan. I confess to not being familiar with the music of Sullivan, but it possibly sounds that way, too. That said, why setlle on German when you have Tchaikovsky (and Sullivan)?



Ultimately, I'm glad to be a music lover today in the global world, and not one confined to Great Britain in the days of Edward VII.



TT 55 minutes (but apparently the disc was reissued with a complement, Delius' Brigg's Fair with Hickox conducting Bournemouth, British Classics: The Land of the Mountain and the Flood, Briggs Fair, for which I have found no listing on the European sister companies). Gibson and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra seem to play excellently and the 1968 sonics remain excellent. My copy is for sale on the French sister company.

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